Note: this is my review from 101A, which is just as applicable to 101B.

I took Romanian 101A-C with Prof. Galateanu, and she is undoubtedly among the best professors at UCLA. She is incredibly intelligent, is passionate about and dedicated to teaching Romanian, and her enthusiasm for imparting knowledge is readily apparent and rubs off onto the rest of the class. She always encourages students to seek her help with any material that they find difficult or challenging, and is a genuinely kind person.

She structures the lessons and textbook (which she herself wrote) toward native English speakers which makes Romanian, in my opinion, the best option for fulfilling your foreign language requirement at UCLA. Her book explains the grammatical concepts needed to grasp Romanian grammar, which is incredibly help (since, in my experience, English grammar isn't taught in the US anymore). The workload, tests, etc. are all reasonable by UCLA standards as long as you are willing to put in a real effort. One thing that I particularly loved about the class is that Prof. Galateanu incorporates a lot of material about different aspects of Romanian culture into every lesson. In addition to learning the language we learned about Romanian history, customs, etc. throughout the course. I cannot recommend this course enough, taking it will be one of the best decisions you make at UCLA.

I imagine that the summer course is fantastic (Romanian 103), but if you see that Romanian 101A-C are being offered during the school year I'd personally recommend taking the full year course as it provides much more time and opportunity to study in depth and retain what you learn. That said if the summer course is your only opportunity to take Romanian then absolutely go for it!

As mentioned in reviews for some of her other classes such as C&EE 91 (which I also had the privilege of taking and loved. I highly recommend it when it is offered in the Spring), you will get a letter grade in accordance with the amount of effort that you put in. Prof. Galateanu is without a doubt one of the most fair professors you will find at UCLA, but unfortunately some students feel that they are entitled to a good grade no matter what and have decided to blame the professor for their grades rather than their own laziness. If you take the course seriously, do the Romanian practice exercises and homework from the course reader, study for the exams, and pay attention/participate in class, yes you will receive a good grade but even more importantly, you will actually learn Romanian AND have fun! If you put in zero effort, the grade you receive will reflect that. Students at UCLA shouldn't have to be told that this is how school (and the rest of the real world) works.

Winter Quarter 2016

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